Debts
by Simone Landon
Summary: It began because he accepted a favor without realizing it. Mostly Tristan and Ryō centric.
1. gambling debts

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

This is an old, incomplete fic I worked on during finals last year. I doubt I'll finish it, but I figured I might as well put it here instead of leaving it to rot on livejournal.  
——————

**-'**

The first day that Tristan came in with a black eye, no one thought anything of it. When they asked, he said it was the result of a fight he'd picked. Joey made fun of him for being so slow that he got a shiner, and Téa told him he was an idiot for getting into fights for fun, but that was all.

A week later, he came in with another bruise, this one on his cheek and slightly scabbed where the skin had broken. It had also gone unmarked, though Joey had slapped him in the back of the head and told the brunet to bring him along the next time he picked a fight--he was getting bored lately anyway. Tristan rolled his eyes and shoved him away.

Two days later, Domino High's heater conveniently broke and overheated the school during second and third period, and the students were allowed to take off their uniform jackets and roll up their sleeves until it was fixed.

Tristan had some very bad bruises on his arms, one of which was obviously fingerprints, and there was a knife cut on his right arm near the shoulder. He'd pulled his sleeves back down when Yugi had noticed and asked what happened, even though it was roasting, and said they were just leftover from the last fight.

Yugi had grown accustomed to people drawing weapons on him, so he didn't think anything of it and let the subject drop. Joey was silent.

Joey dragged an obviously irritable Tristan off during lunch that day. By the time the rest of the gang found them by the back of the school, Joey was yelling at Tristan for his stupidity and recklessness, Tristan was swearing at Joey for interfering where he wasn't wanted, and both of them were trying to punch the other. Téa and Yugi managed to break them apart, and Ryō successfully misdirected the teacher who'd been told that two students were fighting on school grounds to the gym.

Tristan stormed off and ditched the rest of his classes, and Joey refused to explain what he'd been referring to, even to Yugi, so nobody knew what the hell was going on, but it was obviously bad.

That had been Friday. Tristan ditched Saturday classes as well; and when Yugi went to his house under the excuse of dropping off his homework, his sister seemed surprised that he hadn't been at school. Yugi tried to stammer out an explanation that wouldn't get Tristan in trouble, but he had never been that great at lying on the spot; and finally Morgan just took the homework and said she'd give it to Tristan whenever he came back.

—

On Monday Tristan was back in school, sitting in his desk before any of them except Ryō arrived. He brushed it off when Yugi apologized for getting him into trouble, saying that his sister hadn't done more than yell at him for a few minutes before Johji had demanded her attention.

Ryō had to get to school early because one of the students in their class was paying him to tutor her in literature, so he knew that Tristan had arrived before everyone else to hide the fact that he was limping.

He didn't mention it, and the trick worked for a while--even Joey believed it when Tristan skipped eating lunch with them because he said that he needed to finish his latework. Ryō was curious how he was planning to leave after school without anyone noticing, but he never found out; in the break between fourth and fifth period, Tristan glanced out the window, scowled, and then stood up and walked carefully out of the classroom.

Ryō sat behind the brunet, and he looked out the window as well. He made a note of the teenager standing at the school gate, made a note of the way Tristan walked up to him, and made a note of the obvious animosity in their brief conversation.

Joey hadn't seen Tristan look out the window before he left, but he noticed Ryō watching, and moved to look out as well.

"What's up, Baku--"

Joey frowned, leaned forward and shaded his eyes with a hand, and squinted. Then his hand dropped and he swore very quietly and very, very violently. Ryō scooted his chair away.

Joey turned to leave classroom, but then the teacher walked in and made him take his seat. He just shook his head when Yugi asked him what had happened.

Once the teacher had her back turned, Ryō looked out the window again. He made a note of the glint of metal in the other teenager's hand while he talked to Tristan, and the fact that the brunet constantly kept himself out of arm's reach. He wrote something in the bottom margin of his notebook, before ripping the corner out and folding it once.

When Tristan returned to the classroom a few minutes later and the teacher asked where he'd been, he told her that he'd had to go to the restroom. Joey sat with his arms folded and slouched in his chair.

Once she was writing on the chalkboard again, Ryou tapped Tristan in the arm with his pencil and slipped the note onto his desk. When Tristan opened it, he read: _He saw you talking out the window_.

A few minutes later, the brunet tossed another scrap of paper over his shoulder. Ryō caught it before it could slip through the crack between his desk and the wall, and unfolded it.

_I guessed from the glaring_.

Ryō didn't correct his assumption.

—

That afternoon, Tristan split as soon as school was over. If Joey had planned to follow him, he was sidetracked by Téa stealing his backpack. When he tried to get it back, she threw it to Devlin, who waited until Joey was coming after him before tossing it back to her, thus starting an impromptu game of Joey-in-the-middle. Yugi looked sorry for the blond, running back and forth on the school lawn, but he didn't interfere. Ryō stood next to him and watched, preoccupied.

The game lasted for a few minutes, until Joey stood still and started yelling at the both of them--though the majority of his cursing was directed at Devlin.

Téa set one hand on her hip, the other dangling the backpack at her side, and glared at him. "You can have it back once you **tell us** what's going on! We're concerned about him too, but you're the only one who knows what's up!"

Joey paused, but shook his head. "I don't know nothin'," he replied. "He's obviously not talking to me, or haven't you noticed?"

"Cut the crap, Joey," Devlin replied. "He's not talking to you because you already yelled at him for whatever's going on."

"It's none of your business," Joey snapped.

"But we're worried about him," Yugi replied, deciding that now was the time to play the good cop. "It must be something really bad to make the both of you act like this. Isn't it?"

Joey didn't reply, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

The group was silent for a few moments, and Téa looked ready to give up and throw the backpack at Joey's feet, when Ryō said, "The guy at the gate had a knife."

Joey jerked his head up and looked at him.

"I saw it while they were talking. He's probably the one who cut him last time," Ryō continued. "You know who he is, don't you?"

Joey looked away, his hands fidgeting in his pockets. ". . . Yeah."

"Why's he after Tristan?" Yugi asked, taking over the conversation again. Ryō let him, knowing that Yugi was likelier to get answers out of the blond than he was.

When Joey didn't reply for a few seconds, Yugi made a small, subtle hand motion, and Téa moved to stand next to him, breaking up the rough semi-circle that had surrounded the other teenager.

". . . I don't **know**, okay? I'm just guessing. But. . . ." He glanced over at the gate. "The guy's a two-bit bookie. Or he works for one. Something like that."

There was a collective blink. "Tristan gambles?" Yugi asked, sounding as confused as Devlin and Téa looked.

"He . . . races," Joey finally said. "That bike. He doesn't usually wager money on himself, though, so none of this makes sense, but. . . ."

"What's that guy's name?" Ryō asked, when the blond didn't say anything more.

"Jared," Joey replied. "Jared Takami."

Yugi and Téa continued talking, asking questions about what they could do to help and whether the police would be any use. Joey reminded them that racing was illegal and Tristan was underage, which ended that quick enough. Whenever he found an opportunity, Ryō asked more questions about Takami--where he hung out, when he was likely to be there, how many people were in his gang and how were they armed. Joey answered without thinking about it, because Yugi and Téa and Devlin were asking lots of stuff too, and Ryō always managed to make his questions fit the flow of the conversation.

Eventually everyone had to leave. Ryō rode the bus with Devlin and waved goodbye when they separated at the station, before heading home.

—

Late that evening, a white-haired teenager in jeans and a green shirt walked into the yakitoriya that Takami's gang was using as their hangout. He left one person soulless, another with a knife wound, two simply unconscious, one unscathed, and all with their memories erased of his appearance. He also left with the information of how much money Tristan owed.

—

Bakura had never been prone to pickpocketing. It was a petty form of pilfering, and beneath the King of Thieves.

But it was good enough for Tristan. He wouldn't want the brunet to think he was worth, say, jewelry, after all.

It took four days of wandering in the very crowded parts of Domino's downtown and riding in rush hour trains, but he managed to collect the 48,500 yen that Tristan needed. He also stole a small but ornate and dangling mother-of-pearl earring from a woman on one of the trains, just for effort that it required.

He only got one of the earrings off before the train came to the woman's stop, but that didn't matter--as thick as his hair was, it was impossible to see whether Ryō was wearing any earrings, let alone just one.

—

Tristan had been coming to school looking mildly cheerful for the past few days, at least in comparison to the rabid bad mood that he had been in before, so Yugi and Téa were starting to think that things were okay again. Joey remained skeptical.

Eventually, though, Takami and his gang had found someone to blame their inexplicable attack on and had dealt with him accordingly, thus enabling themselves to return to their normal mode of operations. Ryō guessed it had started once more when Tristan showed up at school early again, this time favoring his other leg. He'd been carrying the 48,500 yen in his case, waiting.

As he finished tutoring Karin and walked to his seat, Ryō made a note that Tristan's hand was slightly swollen. He guessed that the brunet had given up on trying to get the money and decided to just fight his way out of the situations he got into.

That was a dangerous way to live, especially in a city like Domino, Ryō remarked as he took his seat.

—

At no point in the school day was Ryō Bakura near Tristan Taylor's backpack for any noticeable length of time.

—

When Tristan arrived home and managed to side-skirt Morgan long enough to get into his room, he was rather astounded to find an envelope containing the amount of money he needed to pay off, plus 2,500 extra.

(Even when faced with an obvious madman and a room full of injured and possibly dying companions, Jared had padded the amount that he was owed. He'd figured if the crazy white-haired guy was going to pay it up, great; and at worst, it wouldn't be a loss if he was forced to write the debt off.)

His first thought was that Joey had done this; but he easily wrote that off as impossible. His second thought was that Yugi had won a punishment game, but that also seemed unlikely since one, Yami was more about destroying his enemies than extorting them, and two, Yugi didn't know what was going on anyway. Even if Joey had spilled about the racing--which Tristan was beginning to suspect he had done, thanks to an offhand comment from Devlin--Yugi still couldn't know about Takami or what he owed.

His third thought was that he should stop thinking and go hand the money over before Takami got his thugs to jump him again. Who knew--maybe the damn stuff came from the Shadow Realm and would melt in a few hours if he didn't hurry. Stranger things had happened.

—

Tristan walked into school the next morning, whistling. At the looks he got from Joey and the others, he gave them a slightly altered version of events. He left out the fact that he'd started making bets in the first place to be able to take Serenity to a shrine festival a few weeks back, and that someone had tampered with his bike, letting out just enough gas that he lost and had to make another bet to try and cover the expenses, which also went wrong. He also explained that he'd got the money by doing part-time work. Neither Yugi nor Joey appeared to believe otherwise, so Tristan began to think that the money really **had** been magical and the Shadow Realm had done something useful for once.

Ryō wrote another note in the margin of his notebook, just above the corner he had previously ripped. The mother-of-pearl earring brushed against his jawbone when he bent his head to tear it out and fold it in half.

He tapped Tristan's arm with his pen once, and when he had the brunet's attention, he tapped it again. Tristan caught on and held his hand out behind him, below the desktops. Ryō dropped the paper into his palm and went back to taking notes.

When Tristan opened it, he read: _You realize you're in his debt now?_

It took a moment to sink in.

When it did, Tristan jerked around to stare at Ryō, but the other teenager was busy copying down their teacher's lecture and didn't acknowledge his hissed question. Before he could force the other teenager to look at him, the teacher made him turn back around. He did, and Ryō made a note of the tension in the brunet's shoulders.

A few minutes later, Tristan openly crumpled up the note and threw it into the gap between his desk and the wall. Ryō and Bakura remained unfazed.


	2. so I sez to him, I sez

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
——————

**-'**

Tristan grabbed Ryō's arm in a grip harder than it looked when lunchtime came and pulled him out of the room, saying something about needing to copy his homework for the next class. Ryō let him. It wasn't like he wanted Yugi or the others to know what had happened, after all. They would do something about it.

Tristan hauled him up to the roof. It was cold enough and windy enough that no one was eating up there.

"What the hell was that about?" Tristan demanded.

Ryō blinked at him, once, languidly. His behavior now was markedly different from the way he'd been around Yugi and the others in class, and noticing this didn't make Tristan any more comfortable. "What do you think?"

Tristan shifted on his feet. "You're saying **he's** the one who got that money?"

"Mm-hm."

"Why!"

Ryō shrugged. "Why should I know why he does what he does?"

"Then why the hell'd you write that note?"

"Because he wanted to inform you," was the reply, and the switch was so fluid that if Tristan hadn't gotten used to Yugi and Yami's interchangeability he would have been startled. "He **did** try to warn you, but you didn't catch on."

Tristan had reflexively taken a step back, but now he snarled and stepped forward again, clenching his hands into fists. "What do **you** want?"

Bakura smirked. "You don't need to know just yet."

"Fuck you," Tristan snapped, grabbing a fistful of Ryō's collar and yanking up. "I'm **not** in your 'debt.' I'll get you the damn money back."

Bakura just continued to smirk, that faint curl of the lip that made him look in control of the situation even as Tristan was forcing him to balance his weight on the balls of his feet. "Because you did such a good job of that last time," he commented. Before Tristan could reply, he went on: "What do I care about the money? It's not like it belonged to my host."

"Then I don't owe you anything, do I? So why should I give a damn about your debt?"

"There is the matter of what the police would do if they found out. . . ."

Bakura refused to let his smirk slip, even for a second, but he did briefly raise an eyebrow when Tristan suddenly laughed. The brunet dropped his collar, and Bakura smoothly rocked back into a solid footing.

"You think you're the first idiot to threaten me with the cops?" Tristan asked, sliding his hands into his pockets with a carelessness that he really couldn't afford, as the Ring was still resting against Bakura's chest beneath his clothes. The thief let it slide, preferring to leave the brunet off-guard. "Go ahead. Try it."

Tristan sneered at Bakura with those last words, before turning and walking back to the access door. But turning his back made some of his caution return, though, and he pulled his hands out of his pockets again. The thief could see his fingers curled with a faint tension.

He remained in place as Tristan left.

When the access door closed, Bakura merely said, "Interesting."

—

Ryō had a hard time smoothing the wrinkles in his jacket back out before he returned to class.

——

That day after school, Ryō caught up to Joey. "Ah, Joey? Could I talk to you about something?"

"Sure, what?" the blond replied.

"It's about Tristan."

Joey looked over at him then, his features slightly harder. Ryō fiddled with the straps of his case. "What about Tristan."

"I . . . heard a rumor. It's probably crazy, but . . . I just wanted to make sure. I mean, he **was** acting really strange the past week, and . . . well. . . ."

"What'd you hear?" Joey interrupted.

"That he didn't earn that money," Ryō said, letting his voice drop. "He . . . stole it."

"Bullshit," Joey replied, relaxing again and stretching his arms behind his head before draping his backpack behind his shoulder. "I don't care what kind of trouble he got into, Tristan would never steal. It's just not him."

"Yeah . . ." Ryō said quietly. "Yeah. You're right. I didn't believe it, really. . . ." He trailed off, and then bit his lip as if remembering something that he didn't want to bring up. Joey noticed and asked what it was.

"Well, the guy who said that Tristan had stolen the money, he said that he was thinking about going to the police."

Joey laughed. Ryō made a note that both Tristan and Joey had had the exact same reactions.

"Let 'em try," Joey said. "Tristan's brother-in-law's a cop. He'll know better than to listen to those half-assed punks."

Ryō blinked. "Really?" he asked with genuine surprise.

"Yep," Joey nodded. "That's why he can shoot so good, y'know--the guy taught him how. And that's why he's never been charged, even when the races got busted. His brother always managed to pull a string or just get him out of the area."

"Really," Ryō repeated. "I never knew that."

"Well, duh," Joey said cheerfully as they stopped for a red light. "Not a whole lotta guys are gonna go around saying they're related to a cop. That's just **askin**' for trouble, right there."

Ryō smiled. "Good point."

Joey looked over at him. "Hey, who's the bastard talking about the cops, anyway? We'll fix him."

"I didn't see his face," Ryō replied sheepishly. "It was after Tristan left the library, and I was putting my homework back in my bag. I heard someone talking in the stacks."

"Hmph." Joey snorted. "Eh, it's their funeral if they actually try it. Don't listen to that crap about him."

"I won't," Ryō promised. "Thanks for telling me." When the light turned green, he turned back around. "I'll see you at school tomorrow!"

"Yeah, see ya," Joey called, heading down the crosswalk.


	3. he stalks because he loves

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
——————

**-'**

It was one thing to decide never to gamble--or at least never to gamble using a particular bookie--again, and another to give up racing altogether. Tristan was totally committed to the former and never even thought of the latter. No one knew to yell at him for being an idiot--he was careful to keep his racing world and his school/friends world separate, with the sole exception of Joey, and even Joey knew very little about it and never bothered to attend.

So Tristan had no idea how Ryō managed to find out about the race that was held the next week. He had a pretty good idea why he was there, though. He glared at the other teenager as he balanced the on the bike, helmet in his hands. Ryō only smiled back, standing behind the other people who were watching.

Tristan yanked on his helmet and kicked the bike away from the curb, trundling it up to the starting point.

—

Winter break finally came, and with no school there were more races held with something resembling regularity. Tristan brushed off the first one, but when he asked whether a white-haired guy had showed up and was told no, he agreed to the second.

Ryō was there, lingering behind the rest of the crowd. Tristan briefly wished that he was Bakura, so that he would be able to justify throwing the helmet at him.

Yuho and Juan were racing first, with him going up against Alex and the two winners of those racing each other, so he was there when Anderson started hassling Ryō. Tristan deliberately looked away, hoping that if the other teen got shoved around enough he would take the hint that he didn't belong here and stay away. He listened to Anderson sarcastically ask what a girly-boy was doing annoying them, and agitatedly kicked his heel against his tailpipe.

At the sudden scream of pain, Tristan kicked the break stand down and shoved his way into the center of the small circle that had formed.

"Shit, you broke his arm!" Saori hissed.

"No, I dislocated his shoulder," Ryō replied. "It'll be fine when it's popped back into place."

"Asshole!" she snapped.

Ryō shrugged, hands in his pockets. "He started it."

By that time, Alex had walked into the circle and slapped Anderson upside the head. "Stop crying, you look like a woman," he said in annoyance, before starting to pull Anderson's coat off.

"Fuck you, it **hurts**," was the succinct reply.

While Alex was snapping the guy's shoulder back into the socket, Tristan took the opportunity to haul Ryō out of the crowd and halfway down the road.

"Christ, just go away before they kill you, would ya?"

"I doubt that's going to happen," Ryō replied mellowly.

"Just. beat. it," Tristan said tightly. "I don't want you here."

Bakura chuckled. "If I only went where I was wanted, Tristan, I would never go anywhere at all."

Tristan reflexively set his footing, but the thief was already gone. The other teenager pressed two fingers to his temple. "It makes me dizzy when you do that," Ryō complained under his breath.

Tristan paused, and then shook his head sharply. He rolled his shoulders beneath his jacket. "Look, just . . . just go away."

"Why?" Ryō asked.

". . . Because this isn't a **game**, all right? There's no cards or crazy people to possess, and I don't want that freak spirit of yours to kill anyone, so leave," he snapped.

Ryō tilted his head briefly, and made a note that Tristan had framed the majority of his reasoning in an antithesis of the world Yugi brought all of them into on a weekly basis.

"If I was Joey, would you mind me being here?" he asked.

Tristan paused. ". . . You're not him, so it doesn't matter. Split."

Ryō frowned. "You're being a jerk. I'm just here to give a friend support."

Tristan stared at him, before pressing a thumb to the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I might believe that, if I didn't think that other you is trying to drive me crazy and you're willing to help him."

Ryō smiled at that, and before Tristan could tell him to leave yet again, Alex called: "Oi, Taylor, you gonna forfeit?"

"I'm comin'!" he yelled over his shoulder, before looking back at Ryō. "Seriously. Leave. I'm not gonna say anything if you get beat up for what you did."

"It's cute that you're worried," Ryō said, before turning around and starting to walk away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Tristan watched him, blinking.

"Taylor!"

"Coming! Shut up!"

—

Tristan wasn't surprised when he lost the race. His concentration had been trashed. He was just glad he hadn't gotten himself killed in a stupid accident while in that state.

—

Ryō showed up at the next race, too. He was easier to spot this time, since everyone kept their distance. Tristan ignored him.

He showed up at the third one as well, and Alex told him he should stop letting Ryō know the locations.

"**I'm** not the one telling him," Tristan replied. "You wanna find out who is and bitch them out, be my guest. I don't like it either. --But he's a friend, so don't touch him."

"You've been losing since he started showin'."

"I know," Tristan snapped.

Alex shrugged then. "Better for me," he said before walking off.

When he lost the race again, Tristan didn't bother to watch the match between Alex and Anderson. He grabbed Ryō's arm and pulled him out of the crowd and over to his bike. "C'mon."

Ryō was getting a little tired of being yanked around all the time, but he just rolled his eyes and tugged his arm out of Tristan's grip.

Tristan drove Ryō back to his apartment. When the other teenager climbed off of the bike, Tristan removed his helmet so he could speak clearly, but stared forward at the street. "Look, I mean it. Stop showing up. You're like a friggin' bad luck charm."

"I'm not **doing** anything," Ryō replied, hands in his pockets. He was hunched over a little from the bitter cold of the windy ride. "Is just having school and racing collide that distracting for you?"

"Yes," Tristan replied flatly, since he doubted a lie would get him anywhere. "So stop coming."

"It's not me who's learning where you're racing and when," Ryō told him. "I just wind up there."

Tristan swore under his breath and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. He looked over at Ryō. "What the hell does he want! It'll take me a while, but I'll get the damn money back. Tell him he's not helping by throwing me off."

"He doesn't want the money," Ryō replied. "It's nothing as big as 48,500 yen."

Ryō pulled his hands out of his pockets and stepped forward, and Tristan tensed up when the other teenager grabbed his jacket collar. Before the brunet could shove him away, Ryō cupped the back of Tristan's neck with his free hand and leaned down to kiss him.

Ryō's hand was warm through his glove, he thought to himself, when it should have been cold.

It was a short kiss, just a press of the lips, and Ryō soon straightened up before Tristan could react. "It's nothing much at all," he said quietly, before letting go of the brunet's collar. He took a step back, then turned around and started walking toward the stairs. "Bye."

Tristan stared after him, scrubbing his lips off with the back of his hand. "What the fucking hell . . ." he muttered under his breath.

Despite the apparent confusion in his words, Tristan kicked away from the curb and drove off faster than he chose to acknowledge.


	4. pool starts with p, and that rhymes with

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
——————

—

"This is the last one we can have for a while," Alex said, handing over the flask. Tristan poured a small amount of the whiskey into his soda bottle. "Then we gotta wait 'til Christmas and New Year's are done with. Goddamn cops."

"Yeah," Tristan commiserated. He took a sip of his drink, and added, "Don't bother emailing me the times. I gotta lay off for a while."

Alex raised an eyebrow, then looked over at the bench Ryō was sitting on a dozen feet away. "You want us to kick his ass out of here? Anderson's still pissed, y'know."

"I said don't mess with him."

Alex hid a snort in his own soda. "Is he blackmailing you or what?"

When Tristan didn't reply and just took another chug of soda, Alex pursed his lips for a moment before changing the subject. "Ch. 'S fine with me--racing you's not worth the effort until you get a better machine."

Tristan flipped him off. "Screw you, I've beaten you before."

"Beat**en**," Alex emphasized. "Don't live in the past, loser."

The civility in the conversation steadily disintegrated until the last race was done. Yuho had won again, and he immediately took the money and Saori off to celebrate. Tristan pulled out on his bike without looking back and left Ryō to walk home.

—

He spent the next two nights at home, but that got really boring really fast. A little after 10 the second night he called up Joey and, surprisingly, found the blond at home.

"Wanna play pool?"

"Sure," Joey replied.

"Okay. See you there."

"See ya."

There was a western-style pub between his house and Joey's apartment--closer to Joey than him, but the walk was only annoying in the middle of summer or winter--with a couple of pool tables crammed into it. The managers always let Joey in, since they knew the teenager from the times he had to go down there and lead his father back home after particularly bad days at work, and unless the place was too busy and room was limited, they could usually play for a while before getting pushed out.

Learning Duel Monsters had also gotten Joey to start practicing his skills at other things and had stopped him from relying so heavily on luck, so over the last year his pool skills had improved to the point that he was beating Tristan more than half of the time. It was annoying.

They played six sets without speaking. Joey was lining up his shot and staring at the ball when he asked suddenly, "You're not in trouble again, are you?"

"No," Tristan replied, focused on chalking his cue. "I'll take care of it myself."

"Big surprise there," Joey muttered under his breath. He added: "Bring it up before everyone freaks out again this time, will ya?"

"Don't worry about it," Tristan said.

Joey made his shot, bounced the cue ball off the opposite wall and sank the 5 ball into the side pocket, and that was the end of the conversation that night.

—

Having to baby-sit Johji was annoying enough, but having to drag the little brat along with him just for a simple errand was worse. In Tristan's mind, if Morgan needed a respite from the kid that badly, she shouldn't ought to've had him in the first place.

He was smart enough not to mention that to her, though. Living with Johji was better than having to live with one of their parents.

But it was still a pain in the ass to go shopping with him; he always had to walk down the exact center of the aisles, since Johji liked to knock things off the shelves.

"I'm boooored!"

"I don't give a damn. Now stop being annoying so we can get out of here."

"I'm gonna tell Mommy that you swore in front of me!"

Tristan made several under-the-breath comments about curses from God and kids switched at birth, as he debated getting the smaller packages of yakisoba noodles so that he could buy some tangerines. Shinji liked tangerines too, so even if Morgan was irritated, he'd have an ally.

"You stopped showing up."

Tristan caught the package before it could hit the ground, and carefully set it back on the shelf before turning around and glaring at Ryō.

"So what?"

Ryō shrugged. "He was disappointed, is all."

"Disappointed."

"Who the hell are you?" Johji demanded.

"Shut up, brat," Tristan replied.

"You shut up! I'm gonna tell Mommy that you yelled at me **and** that you were talking instead of doing errands, bastard!"

"**You're** the one who was almost a bastard, and stop swearing in public!"

"I don't have to listen to you!" Johji started rattling off a list off all the swear words he knew, loudly. Tristan covered his face with a hand.

A moment later he looked over at Ryō, who was staring at Johji with a priceless expression. Tristan recalled that he'd never met his nephew before, and said, "Let me borrow your scarf."

Ryō tugged it off and handed it over, still a little wide-eyed. Tristan shrugged a shoulder out of the straps of the baby-carrier and slung it around so that he could reach Johji.

"Bi--hey, what're y--mph! MMMPHT!"

Tristan knotted the scarf behind Johji's head and slid his arm back through the carriage. "Thanks," he said, not looking over at Ryō.

"I think that might suffocate him," was all the other teenager replied.

"Good," Tristan muttered, "it'll be doing the family a friggin' favor." He reached back and tugged on the scarf just enough to loosen it a fraction.

Through the scarf, Johji's retort managed to sound remarkably like 'motherfucker.' He started hitting Tristan on the shoulders.

He grabbed the first packages of yakisoba that he could reach and started to walk away, briefly waving a hand over his shoulder. "Bye."

Ryō didn't follow him out of the aisle, and Tristan was relieved enough that he didn't even care that people were looking at him and Johji funny.

—

A week and a half later, after school had started again, Ryō asked if he could have his scarf back.

"Oh, yeah," Tristan said. "I forgot about that. I washed it when I got back, but it's been sittin' on my dresser. I'll bring it in tomorrow."

Ryō smiled. "Oh, I don't have anything to do today. I can walk back with you and get it this afternoon--unless you have somewhere to be?"

"I gotta watch Johji," Tristan lied, before instantly yelling at himself for not picking something that would have prevented him from going home for hours.

Ryō just continued to smile. "That's all right. It shouldn't take me a minute to get it and leave."

Tristan shoved his hands into his pockets, irritated. He noticed that Ryō's original question had managed to hold him back enough that Joey and the others were too far ahead of them to be in hearing distance. "Yeah, well . . . fine, whatever."

"Thank you," Ryō replied.

Tristan slumped into his jacket collar and looked away. "Stop smiling at me like that," he muttered.

—

Tristan and Ryō broke away from Yugi and Téa at the bus stop, and at the second stoplight Joey turned to the left while they kept walking forward. Once everyone else was gone, neither of them talked.

It wasn't until they turned onto the street that led to Tristan's house that the brunet spoke up.

"I like **Serenity**, all right?"

Ryō chuckled. "I think we all caught on to that one."

There was a reply to that, but Tristan didn't give it; and Ryō and Bakura both noticed.

When they reached the gate, Tristan finally looked over. "I'll get it out of my room. Wait here."

"Can't I come in?" Ryō asked, tilting his head. "It's pretty cold."

"Morgan doesn't like it when I have people over while watchin' Johji, and if he even heard your voice, he'd be sure to tattle."

"Do you know that whenever you lie, you glance to your upper right?" Ryō shifted his case to his right hand and pointed to his left eye. "If you would just switch it over to this eye, then it would look like you're trying to remember something, and it would be much harder to tell. It's common body language."

Tristan stared at him for a silent five seconds. Then he swore vehemently under his breath and kicked the gate open before stalking inside.

Ryō interpreted that as an invitation and followed him.


End file.
